


Destiny 2: Journey Through Darkness

by NetRaptor



Series: Destiny and Destiny 2 stories [1]
Category: Destiny (Video Games)
Genre: Drama, F/M, Friendship/Love, Survival
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-17
Updated: 2018-05-19
Packaged: 2019-05-08 09:47:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,751
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14691636
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NetRaptor/pseuds/NetRaptor
Summary: Destiny 2: A Guardian and her Ghost suffer the loss of their Light after the Traveler is taken. Now they must survive the perils of a journey through the wilds, hunted by the Red Legion, guided only by a falcon and a dream. May contain feels.





	1. Lost Light

I was dead.

Until I wasn't.

I'd been sitting in traffic at the Cosmodrome when the bombs fell. The windshield shattered. My blouse burned away, even as I screamed and tried to unfasten my seatbelt. But I couldn't, and I died there.

Funny thing about being dead. There's an awful lot of light. You think of the deep, sweet darkness of sleep, but that wasn't how it was for me. I soared out of my body and swam into the light.

"Yes," said a voice. "Yes, you'll do nicely."

And then I woke up.

I was still sitting in the car, but now it was a brown, rusted hulk. Weeds grew through the undercarriage. Through the frame where the windshield had been, I saw the rusted remains of the other cars. The road has completely vanished, replaced by waving grass. The Cosmodrome stood nearby, a huge crack running through from roof to foundation. I'd missed my ship by a few decades, looked like.

In front of my nose floated a little robot.

"Ack!" I swatted it away and half-fell out of the car.

"Hello!" the robot called, unperturbed by the blow. "I know this is a bit of a shock."

I scrambled to my feet. What on earth was I wearing? Some kind of black body armor? Or was I a robot now, too? I touched my face and felt skin. Nope, still human.

I whirled to glare at the robot. It was about the size of a softball, made of four segments set in a diamond around a central blue eye-lens. No wings or propellers. No idea what held it up.

"What did you do to me?"

The robot's eye shifted left, then right. "Ah. Yes. Well, you see, I regathered your quantum data from the surrounding ruins ..."

I thumped myself in the chest with one fist. Ow. Armor. "I was dead! They bombed us to hell!"

"Were you in hell?" the robot asked with interest. "I always wondered where the soul returns from."

"No, I ..." I hesitated. "It only seemed like a few minutes. I never saw the afterlife ... only light."

"Light!" the robot exclaimed, its segments spinning in a circle. "You truly saw only light? But you died hundreds of years ago!"

"It was a few minutes to me," I said. "We were evacuating because of aliens attacking the Traveler. Who are you? I mean, I can see you're a robot."

"I'm a Ghost," the robot replied. "Specifically, I'm your Ghost."

I reached out one finger and poked the ghost's eye. It was glass.

"Ow," it said. It spoke with a masculine voice, so I suppose it was male, somehow.

"A ghost," I said flatly. "You float. Right. So I died and woke up in the future."

"I resurrected you," the ghost corrected.

"You ... resurrected." I gave a hollow laugh. "Of course robots can resurrect people in the future. Naturally. Goodbye."

I stomped off through the grass and rotting cars. I was dead. Everyone I knew was dead. Friends. Family. Kids. Husband. Dead, and what's more, dead centuries ago, if I could believe floating ghost God-robot. Tears stung my eyes. Hadn't anybody made it to the evacuation ships, then? Was I the only human left on Earth? Had the Traveler left?

"Wait, Guardian!" the ghost called after me. "I can explain!"

"You should have left me dead!" I yelled over my shoulder, voice cracking. "I was happier back in the light!"

"All Guardians possess the Light!"

"My name is not Guardian! It's Kelly!"

I rounded a car and came upon a monster.

It crouched behind the car, obviously listening as I approached. It was so not human. The limbs were too long, the thumbs on the wrong side of its hands. And the face! Was it a helmet? It had four eyes, whatever it was. And horns. And body armor. And a gun, which it aimed at me.

Bang.

I hit the ground with the idea that the monster had punched me. Shockwaves of pain rippled through my chest. As I levered myself up on my elbows, in horror I saw a huge smoking hole in my breastplate. The monster yelled something nearby. Probably summoning more of its kind.

"Hold on, I've got this," the ghost said near my left ear. A beam of white light shone from his eye, tracing across my wound. It healed at once, the pain fading.

"Now, run!" the ghost exclaimed. "The Fallen are trying to catch you."

I scrambled to my feet. The monster alien thing was beckoning to more of its kind, yelling. They wove through the cars, moving with a creepy, flowing gait.

I ran for the ruined Cosmodrome. Whatever else resurrection had done for me, I was in great shape. In my past life, I'd been trying to lose weight and could only manage a slow jog. Now, I ran like a champion sprinter. I tried jumping over a car and cleared the hood with a foot to spare.

Some kind of glowing bullet flashed by my left elbow and melted a hole in a nearby car. It would make short work of my armor. Ghost-healing or not, I still felt pain, and I wasn't fond of it in either of my lives.

"This way!" the little robot called, flying ahead of me. He led me up a series of sagging metal stairs and along the old walkway into a hole where a security checkpoint had been.

"We've got to find you a weapon," the ghost muttered, leading me down a hallway with a sagging roof.

"Gee, you think?" I snapped. "What kind of crap future did you bring me to? Did we lose the war?"

"Which one?" the ghost replied.

"What do you mean, which one? The one that killed me! When the aliens attacked the Traveler! I was supposed to meet my family on Venus!"

"Oh, that one," the ghost said with distaste. "Yes, that war ended humanity's golden age. Mercury, Venus, and Mars, while still terra formed, are occupied by various alien factions. Most of Earth is ruins, as you see here. All that remains is the Last City, built under the shadow of the Traveler itself."

"All of Earth," I said, my steps slowing to a crawl. My brain tried to grasp this. Los Angeles? Berlin? Paris? All gone? The whole planet must have bathed in the blood of humanity. "All of Earth?"

The ghost returned to me, his blue eye fixed on my face. "Yes. The Traveler sent out us Ghosts as its agents. Each Ghost is bonded to a Guardian. You are mine."

"I'm a what?" Never mind the whole "bonded to a flying robot" thing. "Guardian of what?"

"Earth, of course," the ghost replied. "You were resurrected by the power of the Light for this purpose. I heal and sustain you with the Light. Your strength is drawn from it. Even your soul seems to have been captured by it, waiting for me. The Traveler chose you."

I leaned against the wall, looking down at my armor-clad body. "What you're saying is, I'm some kind of magic-infused zombie."

"A zombie has no soul," the ghost retorted. "Think of yourself as a noble revenant, brought back at the behest of your people."

"A revenant is still undead," I retorted. "I'm not really alive."

"Yes you are," the ghost snapped, his four segments spinning around the eye. "Just because I heal you doesn't mean you can survive without air or food. You are mortal. With ... benefits."

I opened my mouth to say how stupid this sounded, but alien voices echoed from behind me. I sprang down the hallway, following the robot's lead.

With his help, I armed myself, and even found a mostly-running ship to carry me away from ruined Russia. The aliens were not happy about this. For some reason, they really wanted to capture me.

"There," the ghost said. "Now I can rest." Without a word of explanation, he fizzled into blue sparkles and sank into my chest.

"Ack!" I grabbed at the place where he'd vanished, but there was nothing there. I couldn't feel anything, either.

"Help! I've got a robot inside me!"

"Don't be silly," the ghost said inside my head. "I'm simply phased. I recharge and repair myself using the Light within you. That's the Guardian bond."

Little did I know how important this would become.

* * *

The Ghost and I spent more than a year together. We explored the Last City, took missions in the Guardian tower, earned ourselves better ships, and confronted the Fallen, the Vex, the Hive, and other alien races.

I trained to become a soldier in the army of Guardians that protected Earth. I made friends and had plenty of good times in the Last City. The sight of the Traveler hanging in the sky, a vast pale globe like a moon only a few miles high, reassured all of us. While it shared its light with us, we had the power to defend the last remnant of humanity.

Until the Red Legion came to destroy us.

* * *

The Legion came at night, their ships hidden in the storm clouds. They had quietly taken out our satellites and sensors, so we didn't see them until they unloaded fifty missiles into the Tower.

We Guardians fought back, healed and resurrected by our Ghosts, sustained by the planetoid Traveler overhead. But the Red Legion pressed forward, overwhelming us with sheer numbers, destroying the Last City sector by sector.

I was part of a strike team sent to disable their flagship. I fought my way to the reactor and back out again as the ship's engines began to falter. But ultimately, it was all in vain.

The flagship had a backup reactor. It stabilized in midair as Ghaul stepped onto the deck and faced me.

Dominus Ghaul, the massive leader of the Red Legion, member of the Cabal, clad in hundreds of pounds of white armor and with a rebreather embedded in his face, didn't even bother to draw a weapon. He merely pointed. "Behold as we take your precious Traveler."

A huge claw-like clamp, miles long, had dug itself into the Traveler's side. As I watched, a shield rippled outward from the clamp, encapsulating the Traveler and cutting off the Light.

My Ghost staggered in the air, tried to speak, then dropped to the deck like a broken toy.

Inside me, the brilliant, powerful Light that sustained me and strengthened me suddenly went dark.

I thought I was dead again. My legs buckled and I fell to the deck. But no-I blinked at Ghaul's armored boots with their split toes. I was alive, barely. But I was an empty shell, filled with darkness instead of Light. There was no strength left within me.

Ghaul mocked me, outlining his plan to take the Traveler for the Red Legion and use the Light himself. But his words were windy roaring in my ears. I managed to close my fingers around my poor Ghost before Ghaul's heavy boots could crush him. Was he lost to me forever without the Light? He had become such a dear friend to me-I couldn't bear to think of him lifeless.

Ghaul kicked me. I rolled to the edge of the deck and nearly fell off. My drained muscles barely caught me in time. My Ghost slipped from my fingers and fell into the ruined, burning city far below. I tried to catch him, but I was too slow.

Then Ghaul kicked me off the ship, too.

* * *

My spirit flew free through space, guided by a bird made of Light. We flew over the green valley that enclosed the Last City. The City in all it's pre-destruction glory lay before us, shining in the sunlight, safe beneath the Traveler.

We plunged into the river and sank among the stars. The spirits of the dead gazed up at us, expressions frozen in piteous cries for help. But there was nothing we could do for them. Constellations swam by us-a staff, a sword, and a shield. The bird circled, and I flew with it. I was at peace, in bliss, perfectly happy.

The dream changed. A new horizon opened before us, crowned with a great curved mountain flickering with lightning. Yet, it wasn't a mountain. More like a fragment of a moon, now half-buried in the earth.

I wanted to fly closer, but the bird swept upward, and I followed.

* * *

Two days later, I awakened to pain.

It throbbed through my whole body, every heartbeat creating wave after wave of agony. I stared up at the skeletons of buildings all around and wondered how I was still alive. I had fallen at least a quarter of a mile. Maybe debris had slowed my fall.

Slowly I moved my limbs. My left arm and side seemed to have taken the brunt of the impact. My arm was crushed, a bit of white bone protruding from my wrist. Searing pain in my side told me that most of my ribs were broken. My armor was caved in and full of cracks. My heart beat feebly, and awful pain in my insides told me the extent of my internal injuries.

I was going to die. But not yet, maybe.

I climbed to my feet by degrees. First my good elbow, then one knee, then a foot. It took a long time. When I finally stood erect, I could only manage a hunched posture-my crushed rib cage and armor dragged my whole body sideways.

I stood in what might have been a street. The area was so blasted, all I could identify was chunks of shattered concrete and masonry. I limped forward. If I was going to die, it would be in a place of my choosing, not the spot where Ghaul had dumped me like so much garbage.

Red Legion ships flew overhead. In the distance, their vehicles swarmed along a highway, followed by a platoon of soldiers, marching in formation. None of them noticed me, a single, feeble, Lightless Guardian, limping through the rubble.

Our city was destroyed. The pain of it beat in time with my throbbing body. All of our people butchered. The other Guardians gone or killed. How could any of us fight without Light? The darkness inside me was cold and complete. In a way, it was worse than the devastation or the pain of my dying body. I was alone in outer darkness. Death might free me from it ... Or I might only drown in that darkness forever. The thought sent horror curling through me. No, I couldn't die without Light.

A Legion ship swept overhead, floodlights sweeping the ruins. I put on a tiny burst of speed and reached the shelter of a leaning girder with part of a wall attached. Their loudspeaker gave an 'all clear' call and moved on.

I crept from cover to cover in the rubble, unsure of where I was going. But I couldn't let the Legion glimpse me and gun me down. Only darkness awaited on the other side. I had lost the Light.

In the distance, a voice called faintly, "Guardian!"

I knew that voice, familiar to me as my own. My Ghost had survived without light somehow. I stumbled in the direction of his voice.

He floated among the rubble a short distance away, turning in a circle, sweeping the area with his headlight. I wanted to shout, attract his attention, but I couldn't force words through my dry throat. I stumbled in the rubble and fell to all fours. The jolt sent fresh pain screaming through my arm and side.

"There you are!"

Ghost's headlight illuminated me. He flew to me and traced his healing beam over my body. Some of the pain ebbed. He swept me again, then again. His power barely functioned. It was like weak winter sunlight with barely any strength. I sobbed in relief.

I held out a hand. Ghost landed in my palm and gazed up at me. His blue eye lens was cracked. The star-shaped body was crushed out of shape, the fine red paint scratched off. But somehow, despite the damage, he still functioned.

I clutched him to my heart, tears running down my face. "I can't believe you're still alive."

"Me neither," Ghost said faintly, his voice weak and shaky. "I thought I'd lost you."

We sat there for a moment as my body slowly healed under the influence of his remaining Light. My breathing became easier, and the bone protruding from my wrist snapped back into place. I might be filled with darkness, but I still had one friend left to me.

"How are you alive?" I whispered, letting him float out of my hand. "With no Light?"

Ghost tried to spin his four segments, but they were so dented that he couldn't. "The Guardian bond. I must have awakened when you did." His voice broke, which should have been impossible for a robot. By now, I was fully aware that Ghosts weren't robots.

"Guardian ..." he whispered. "Kelly. I've been tracking transmissions. The survivors evacuated the planet yesterday. There's no one left. The Legion are hunting and slaughtering helpless Guardians."

I drew a deep breath, testing my lungs. The pain in my side had diminished, but the ruined armor still cut into my flesh. I unbuckled my chest plate and lowered it to the ground. I climbed to my feet with most of my old strength. But I was terribly thirsty. I had to get out of here. There was no help in the City anymore. My heart weighed heavy in my chest.

"Please be careful," Ghost murmured. "I can't resurrect you. Not since ..." He trailed off, as if the Traveler's capture was too terrible to speak of.

"Can you still phase into me?" I asked. "I'll get us clear. It's not far to the outer wall."

Ghost dissolved into blue sparkles and melted into my chest. There, I felt him as a series of broken pieces. Usually I couldn't feel him at all.

"Ghost," I whispered, my eyes burning. "You're so damaged."

"No more than you," he replied in my mind, his voice feeble.

I set out for the outer wall, creeping through the rubble, staying in the shadows. I scavenged a pistol with an empty magazine. Holding it made me feel better, so I carried it in one hand as I crept along.

The Legion foot patrols ended at the City walls, but their airships still swept overhead periodically. I kept to the trees and brush, hiding whenever one of them came into sight.

At dawn, I curled up beneath a hedge of thick juniper bushes and sank into an exhausted sleep. Ghost must have phased out to keep watch, because I found him floating beside my ear when I awakened that evening.

"No immediate danger," he informed me. "But you are perishing of thirst. I can't heal that. We must find water."

My head felt hot and heavy, my tongue too big for my mouth. "Where?" I managed to say.

Ghost turned in a northwesterly direction. "That way. I'm not certain of the distance. I'm afraid ... without access to the mainframe or satellites ... I'm a poor navigator."

He sounded so downcast that I caught him out of the air and cradled him in both hands. "Ghost. Listen. You're doing the best you can. We'll make it." I held the crushed metal body to my cheek. My eyes ached in a futile attempt to tear up.

"Kelly," he whispered. "Please don't die. I need you."

"And I need you," I whispered.

I crawled out from under the bushes, keeping a wary eye out for Legion scouts, and made my stealthy way toward the northwest.


	2. Alone in darkness

We found water, a thin, icy stream that flowed down from the mountains. I followed it into the foothills. It was easier to hide among the rocks and cliffs.

"Maybe other Guardians made it out," I told Ghost hopefully on the fourth day. "Surely I'm not the only survivor."

"Most have already fled," Ghost replied inside my head. "I don't know about any others. The Legion has destroyed all communications."

My thirst had been slaked, but I'd had nothing to eat in four long days. Without the Light, I couldn't ignore it for as long as I used to. I was awfully mortal, barely able to run, even.

"The darkness is hardest to bear," I muttered. "Worse than hunger."

"I know," Ghost murmured. "Light has left the world. I am darkness, you are darkness. But together ... we remember the Light."

I glanced at the autumn sun. Even it seemed pale and dim in comparison to the fierce liquid gold that had once sustained me. Unwillingly, my gaze dropped to the ruins of the City and the Traveler floating above it. The giant clamp gripped it like talons, and black spread outward from the clamp, leeching across the Traveler's white surface like infection.

My stomach twisted and I retched. Had there been anything in my stomach, I might have vomited. But I was empty, nothing inside me but darkness. The sight of the beloved Traveler so blighted was enough to sicken me from a distance.

"Vile," Ghost whispered, also gazing at the Traveler. "Don't they see what they're doing?"

"Tell it to save itself," I whispered. "Tell it to fight."

Ghost made a pathetic sound, like a laugh that was closer to tears. "Their shield has cut me off, Kelly. And ... and the Traveler hates fighting. It ... it created Guardians only when it was forced to stand and not flee to another world, as is its custom."

"So, what now?" I demanded, pointing at it. "It's just going to sit there and let them corrupt it?"

"I don't know," Ghost sobbed, sinking out of the air. I caught him before he hit the ground. He rested in my palm, his eye-lens sheathed closed. "I don't know," he whispered. "Traveler, why have you forsaken us? It is being challenged, and yet it waits. It feels our pain, and yet it feels the pain of another, too."

I sat there, holding Ghost, gazing at the Traveler, trying to figure this out. Slowly the horror of realization crept through me. "You don't mean Ghaul?"

"I don't know," Ghost whispered. "Fleeting impressions from before they raised the shield. He cries out to it, and it listens. But I can't hear it anymore. We are abandoned in the darkness."

"We have each other," I told him. "Maybe we can still help it."

"Maybe," Ghost whispered.

* * *

 

We continued our upward trek, winding through a deepening ravine as the hills rose on either side. The stream became a noisy cataract, leaping down the rocks in icy white curtains.

This was the reason we found the hidden camp. It was tucked against the wall of the ravine, concealed from the air. A neat ring of crates formed barricades, but inside the camp was nothing but dead bodies.

I checked each of them with fresh grief tearing at me. All Guardians. All dead with their throats ripped out.

I sat on a box and cried in new sorrow and exhaustion. If someone had found this secret camp, what hope did I have?

Ghost phased into sight and flew around, scanning bodies and boxes. "Supplies here," he called.

When I didn't stir, he flew back to me. "Kelly," he said softly, "you must eat."

I nodded numbly. The logical side of my brain acknowledged the truth of this. But the rest of me drowned in darkness and despair. I had so hoped to find other Guardians-any survivors at all. The chances of that grew ever more slim. The Legion had been too damn thorough.

Ghost stayed right in my face, watching me cry without comment. Finally, I couldn't ignore him anymore, and let him lead me to a sealed ration crate.

The crate was still full, and Guardian rations were pretty darn good. I inhaled four boxes without paying attention to how much I was eating. Ghost's healing, with no Light, had depleted my body's reserves. I could have eaten the whole crate full.

After four boxes, I made myself stop and drink from the stream. Then I sat there for a while, relishing a full stomach, and becoming aware that I had eaten too much and would be very sick later.

Ghost circled the camp, playing his scanner over everything. "You might replace your armor," he suggested. "And here is a knapsack, which would allow you to carry supplies. And here is a sub machine gun and several spare magazines."

"You're really annoying," I told him. My biggest desire at the moment was for sleep, and escape from the grief and darkness. A full stomach let me relax a crazed vigilance I didn't know I'd been carrying.

"Annoying is my job description," Ghost shot back. "So is keeping you alive. And-" He broke off, spinning about to gaze uphill.

In the deep silence that lay over the mountains, our voices of a moment ago seemed awfully loud. Now I heard the click of claws, the clink of metal, and a low growl.

"War beasts," Ghost whispered. He shot back to me and phased into my chest like a rabbit fleeing to its hole.

I lunged to my feet and snatched up the sun machine gun, jamming a fresh magazine into it. I cursed myself in an undertone-I didn't even know if the thing would fire. It had been dropped by former victims of the war beasts, meaning it hadn't served their purposes in some way. I should have opened it up and cleaned it. No time now.

A pack of the dog-like lizard things sprang over the rocks, gnashing their augmented metal jaws. The Legion used them to harass our soldiers in battle. They were easy enough to kill, but they ran in huge packs. And here I was with no Light and no chest armor.

I squeezed the trigger. Thankfully, the gun responded, firing a burst of bullets. It aimed a little off-center, but I compensated automatically. War beasts flung themselves at me without fear, heedless of their fellows being cut down. One nearly reached me, jaws open as it leaped for my throat. I dodged backward and fired straight into the gaping jaws. It died in midair and rolled to a halt at my feet.

Another circled to the top of the ravine and tried to leap on me from overhead. I barely saw it in time. I filled it with bullets, but its momentum still knocked me down. A blade on its back slashed open my palm as I fended it off. It wallowed and died in a puddle of black blood.

"That's all of them," Ghost said, phasing out of me and glancing around. "Hold out your hand."

I did so, wincing. He played his weak healing beam over it. The flesh slowly zipped back together.

"Are you injured anywhere else?" he asked.

"No," I said breathlessly. "That was the only one that got close enough."

Now I hurried around, collecting food and ammo into the knapsack Ghost had found for me. It wasn't safe out here, and my lethargy had been dispelled by a shot of adrenaline.

"How will I sleep tonight with war beasts running loose?" I said, slinging the bag's strap across my shoulders.

"I'll keep watch," Ghost said. "I'm not completely useless."

"I didn't say you were useless," I said, hefting the sub machine gun. I reached out and touched the spot where he was damaged the worst. "I'm getting you a new shell as soon as I find one."

Ghost looked sadly around the camp. "No ghosts here. They must have died with their Guardians."

I gazed at the bodies, too. "I can't bury them or burn them. My brothers and sisters."

I left the camp with a heavy heart and an equally heavy knapsack. But now I had a weapon and food, so even without Light, I might survive a little longer.

* * *

 

Further up the hill, we saw the falcon.

It was perched on a rock outcropping, watching us with a bright black eye. As we climbed toward it, it took off with a cry.

I froze, watching it. The strange dream I'd had when Ghaul kicked me off the ship flooded into my memory.

"What is it?" Ghost asked.

I struggled to relate the dream. "I was following a bird made of Light. It looked exactly like that falcon. The wings and everything."

Ghost gazed doubtfully in the direction the bird had gone. "It won't do any harm to follow it. It's headed in the same direction we are."

I resumed climbing the hill. "What's the matter? Don't put much stock in dreams?"

"I wouldn't say that," Ghost hedged. "You were near death. A vision, perhaps. But who can say what it means?"

I pondered the strange things the dream had showed me. "I saw the souls of dead Guardians. I couldn't help them. But what stands out the most was that curved hill thing. I don't know how to describe it."

Ghost made a sound like a sigh. "Was it a good place or a bad one?"

I pondered. "Neither. Just ... important. Very important."

We climbed in silence. Or, rather, I climbed and Ghost flew alongside, scanning our surroundings.

We reached the top of the hill. Beyond it was a drop into a narrow valley, then another steep climb up a higher mountain. I felt tired just looking at it. "I vote we camp in the valley."

Ghost surveyed the dense green trees down there. "I agree."

* * *

 

Two more days passed. We followed the falcon, which led us in a winding path higher and higher into the mountains. It also seemed to be showing us a way through that was passable on foot.

I recovered a little each day-or, rather, my body did. My mind remained full of darkness. Without Ghost there to talk to and care about, I might have hurled myself off a cliff in black despair.

Ghost didn't recover at all. I had seen him rebuild himself from the Light before-ghosts were resilient that way. Well-nigh unkillable, they simply reassembled themselves under the power of the Traveler.

But without Light, Ghost simply continued. He merged into me to rest and recharge each time we rested. Despite the darkness inside me, there must have been some remnant of Light. It was enough to keep Ghost alive. But his energy remained low. While before, I seldom had reason to touch him, now I often carried him or cradled him in one arm. Flying taxed him, and he demanded that he keep watch at all times. So I carried him, my heart silently cracking.

I had crested a ridge after a long, hard climb, and stopped to rest in the shelter of a boulder. The wind was cold and sharp, finding every gap in my armor and battered clothing beneath. The altitude made breathing difficult, and sometimes dizziness assailed me.

"Guardian," Ghost whispered from the shelter of my arm. "I don't know how much longer I can last."

Alarmed, I lifted him in both hands, gazing into the cracked blue eye lens. Its glow was slightly dimmer.

"Ghost!" I exclaimed. "You can't die on me now!"

His eye moved a little, scanning my face. "I have so little Light left. The longer we're cut off from the Traveler, the faster I'm drained."

"You're not going to die and leave me out here alone," I said fiercely. "Phase into me and stay there."

He gave me a pleading look from within his crushed segments. "Who will watch for enemies?"

"I will," I said. "You're hurt and starving to death. You've taken care of me. Let me take care of you."

He sighed and closed his eye, fizzling into blue energy and melting into me. "But you have so little Light left, either. All you have left is your Spark. I dare not take that."

I drew a deep breath and clenched my fists. "If it'll keep you alive, take it."

He started to speak, hesitated, then tried again. "Kelly. Guard-Guardian. If I take this last Light from you ... there is no more. How can I be so selfish as to leave you bereft of your Spark? You could die."

"Ghost," I said, climbing to my feet, "I'm offering it to you. I need you to live, and if it costs me my Spark, I can deal with it."

He didn't reply for a long time, waging some internal battle with himself. "All right," he said at last. "Just know that I apologize in advance."

Ghost took my Spark. The world went gray.

At first I didn't notice. Here near the mountain top, it was all snow and rock anyway, and the sky was gray and overcast. I picked my way down an old rock slide, then followed a ledge along an overhang that dropped toward a canyon. We had passed some kind of divide, and the snow rapidly disappeared. Bushes and trees reappeared, and the wind wasn't so bitter. I even found the falcon waiting for us in a bush, busily eating a mouse.

Everything was gray. The bushes, the trees, the clearing sky. I rubbed my eyes. "Ghost ... I've lost color vision."

"Your Spark is gone," Ghost whispered. "I'm sorry."

I blinked at the falcon, which continued calmly ripping chunks out of its prey. "Ghost, are you any better?"

After a long pause, he replied, "My power levels are the highest they've been in days. I feel ... I feel like I might last a while now."

"Good." I thumped my chest with a fist. "Stay in there. I need you to survive."

The falcon shrieked and flew out of the bush, leading me downhill. I followed it, grimly trying to keep up and ignore the colorless world.

"Oh, Kelly," Ghost said in wistful tones. "If only you could know the quality of your Spark."

"What's that supposed to mean?" I snapped. If I focused on the density of the darkness inside me, I would cry, and I couldn't afford any more tears right now. The falcon stayed nearby, landing often, as if careful to lead me just so.

"I can't die now," Ghost said in a small voice. "You gave me your love. That was part of your Spark."

A lump formed in my throat. I swallowed and didn't try to speak.

After a while, Ghost went on, "I've heard of Guardian bonds this strong. But I never dreamed I'd experience it. Do you realize you kept me alive by love alone?"

"I don't know," I muttered, dashing mist from my eyes. "You're my friend. The only one I have left. And seeing you all smashed up, it ... it did something to me."

"This kind of bond makes me invincible," Ghost told me. "If we ever get our Light back, other ghosts will reverence us."

"Then that's priority," I replied. "We'll find a way to regain our Light if it means killing Ghaul with my bare hands."

And even without Light, I still loved my little, annoying, endearing Ghost. But I couldn't put it into words. Maybe I didn't need to.

I jumped across a gap in the mountainside, missed my footing, and toppled downward twenty feet onto rocks.

* * *

 

The first words I heard Suraya Hawthorn say were, "Who left a perfectly good Guardian laying around?"

I opened blurry eyes. Pain pounded through my head and back. A human in heavy clothing stood over me, and oddly enough, her face was tattooed with a ring of dots. Odder still, my falcon perched on her wrist.

She extended her other hand to me. I took it and shakily climbed to my feet. Ghost popped out of me, acting like he intended to do battle on my behalf. I caught him in my fingers. "Hey. Do your job."

Ghost ruefully swept me with a healing beam. The pain faded.

"Nice surprise to see you alive," the woman said. "I'm Suraya Hawthorne. You fit to travel?"

"More or less," I said, picking up my knapsack. "I walked out of the Last City five-no-six days ago."

"Huh," Suraya said. "You're tough for having lost your Light. We need more like you. The other Guardians I've rescued have been pretty pathetic." She beckoned and led me downhill.

When I fell off the mountain, it seemed I had plunged into a little hidden valley on the warmer side of the mountains. A broad grassy field stretched before us with a few ragtag drop ships sitting there. More people milled around them. People! Survivors! I didn't care that they weren't guardians. I wasn't alone anymore.

"Where are we going?" Ghost asked her.

"European dead zone," Suraya replied. "Far away from here."

I managed not to cry until I was packed into a drop ship with everyone else. It was too warm and it smelled, but I didn't care. I clutched Ghost to my heart, bowed my head, and wept in relief and exhaustion. The humans around me stared. They, too, were thin, ragged, their faces gaunt from weariness and exposure. The woman next to me patted my shoulder.

"It's okay, miss," she told me. "We know what you've lost."

I think I cried for most of the trip. When my tears ran dry, I leaned my head against the wall and slept. Ghost refused to phase. He stayed close by my right ear, almost in my hair, standing guard.


	3. Shard of the Traveler

The Farm was a beautiful place. The once modern barns had decayed over the years, the vast spaces that once housed animals now concealing ships in need of repair. But people tilled the fields around it. Cattle grazed on the hillsides. Chickens ran here and there, always running out of the way.

I suppose it was green and pretty. There was plenty of grass and trees in full leaf. The air was still warm, the autumn chill only creeping in at dusk. But to me, the world was only gray, black, and white.

As we disembarked our drop ship, I approached Suraya. "I have ration packs," I told her. "In my bag. I'm sure these people need them more than I do."

She took my knapsack and peered inside. "That's a lot of food. I thought you'd be carrying more weapons."

I shrugged. "I have ammo in there. But food was harder to come by, so I carried all I could."

Suraya gave me an appraising glance. "A Guardian with survival sense? I think I might actually like you."

Us refugees were assigned tents. These were simple green military grade pup tents erected in rows behind an old stable, where they were sheltered from the wind. I crawled into mine and slept. When I awoke, I ate in the mess hall, where the contents of my ration boxes had been mixed with beans, corn, and summer squash. Then I went back to my tent and slept again.

Slowly my exhaustion ebbed. The crying stopped, although my mourning continued. I began to feel human again, and less like a desperate animal. I even managed to take a bath and wash my hair, which made me feel miles better.

Shortly after this, I was summoned to a little shack where the camp doctor asked to speak with me.

He was another Guardian, an Exo, one of the sentient robot race. His face was battered and scratched, the metal dented ever so slightly out of shape. Naturally, they couldn't repair Exos out here, although his ghost had tried.

He pulled up a chair in the shack and indicated a tiny cot nearby. "Sit down. I just need to examine you."

"I'm fine," I said, bristling. "No injuries."

My own Ghost floated over my shoulder, watching in silence.

The doctor nodded. "I expect your ghost has been taking care of you. This is more of a psychological exam. You've been alone in the mountains for at least a week, and we've all lost our Light. Some Guardians aren't handling it so well."

"You're trying to decide if I'm crazy," I said flatly.

"Yes," the doctor said with a sigh. "So, tell me. How did you escape the City?"

It wasn't so much of an exam after that as it was a long conversation. I told him my story, and his ghost scanned me as I talked. My Ghost watched without a word, but I sensed frustration rolling off him. When this was over with, he'd give me an earful about how unnecessary this was.

The doctor told me his story, too. He'd been on the ground, fighting Red Legion troops, when they took the Traveler.

"The shock was horrendous," he said. "Our entire fire team fell apart. Many were slaughtered right there. I grabbed my nearest squad mate and we ran. That's why we survived."

He glossed over his time wandering in the wilds. He'd been picked up by an evacuating drop ship two days in. "I had it easy compared to some. I'm glad you seem to be all right."

He excused himself and stepped outside to confer with his ghost about me.

My Ghost made a grumbling sound.

"What?" I said.

"His ghost was deep-scanning your brain," Ghost snarled. "Invasive. He didn't ask your permission."

I straightened. "Like, was he trying to brainwash me?"

"Passive only," Ghost replied. "But he could have tried. I would have killed him."

My little, annoying, friendly Ghost? Kill someone? I almost laughed. "You couldn't hurt anyone, let alone another ghost."

"Without Light?" Ghost replied. "Watch me. I'm capable of many things."

A chill ran through me. Ghost could phase in and out of solid objects and build a living body out of quanta. If he decided to hurt someone, he could do it in ways I couldn't even imagine.

The doctor returned, looking serious. "Your brain is in good condition, but there's signs of deterioration in your occipital lobe. How's your vision?"

"Fine," I growled.

He produced a small light and shone it into my eyes. I gazed at him without blinking. My eyes worked just fine, and he had to see that.

The Exo face was hard to read, but he rubbed his chin in a thoughtful way. "Have you lost your night vision? Or your color vision?"

I glanced at Ghost. "Color."

The doctor nodded. "I've noticed that the vision begins to deteriorate soon after losing the Light. Not Exos, so much, but humans and Awoken. Other areas may show damage in time. For instance, every Guardian here is obsessed with the Shard of the Traveler. Some even dream about it."

My own dream flashed before my eyes. I knotted my fingers in my lap. "What's the Shard of the Traveler?"

He smiled. "I'll show you. We'll see if you develop an obsession, too."

* * *

The doctor led me out of the farm village and down a gentle slope, out into the pasture land. There was a breathtaking view of the distant landscape, crowned with mountains. But the center of the plain was dominated by the strange, half-moon mountain I had seen in my dream.

I stared at it as if I could devour it with my eyes. It was a piece of the Traveler, all right. A bit of the white external skin was visible. But the rest was torn structural supports, broken beams, and other strange, cracked shapes I couldn't identify. Light glowed from within its fissures-blue, sullen light that I could see despite my color blindness. Sometimes it flickered like lightning.

My whole being yearned to go there, to find the Light. It was there. Not cut off from us by enemies. It, too, was damaged, but not yet dead. I took a few steps toward it, my heart pounding.

The doctor laughed and halted me with a hand in my shoulder. "Easy does it. So you feel it, too."

"There's Light there!" I exclaimed, pointing at the Shard. "We should all go there and get it back!"

Suraya Hawthorn approached, her falcon riding on her gloved wrist. "Nobody goes to the Shard. It's too dangerous."

I faced her, pure need pounding through my body. The darkness within me had never been so complete. I felt like a starving man who had sighted food and been told it was too expensive. "How is it too dangerous? The Light is worth any danger!"

"It's crawling with Fallen scavengers, for one thing," Hawthorn pointed out. "For another, the raw Light exposure has twisted the forest around it. It's a frightening, dangerous place."

"I don't care," I said, hands curling into fists at my sides. "I need that Light. The doctor just said that Guardians will eventually go blind and insane without it. I have to try, if I have to hike there on foot!"

The doctor and Hawthorn exchanged a long look.

"Fine," Hawthorn sighed. "I'll lend you a ship. Try your suicide mission. And to think, I thought you were a Guardian with sense."

Her barbs made no difference to me. The doctor said that guardians developed an obsession with the Shard. What I had went way beyond obsession into compulsion.

* * *

"I'm conflicted about this," Ghost said.

I strode through the dark forest at the Shard's foot, a borrowed rifle at the ready. As Hawthorn had said, the trees had taken on sickly, bent shapes, their roots crawling out of the ground as if trying to escape. Strange glowing mushroom-things sprouted from the forest floor in clumps. No birds sang. No animals moved. The Traveler's power poured into the earth, misused, wasted, polluting instead of healing.

"Conflicted?" I said. "Does this place creep you out?"

Admittedly, it creeped me out, too. Whenever I accidentally stepped on a glowing mushroom thing, squishing it under my boot, shudders raced down my back. I had spotted a few Fallen, but they were busy digging metal out of the ground and hadn't noticed me.

"The Light was never meant to be dumped on the landscape like this," Ghost said, flying along beside me. "The Light is intended to enrich sentient life. Used selectively, it is a gracious, giving power. But wantonly wasted? This land is corrupt."

"You're telling me," I muttered, ducking under a hanging lichen that curled away from me like a tentacle. "But ... I can feel the Light, Ghost. It's so near!"

"I feel it, too," he agreed. "I want it as badly as you do. It's why I'm conflicted."

My whole being yearned toward the Light like a plant grown in darkness. My being seemed to stretch, thinner and weaker all the time, reaching and reaching for it. I was taking a roundabout path through the cover of the woods to the base of the Shard, but the extra time tortured me. I wanted to run straight into the ruins and hurl myself at the first bit of Light I found.

The forest probably wasn't as dark as it seemed, either. My eyesight was beginning to fail, a dim curtain growing in my peripheral vision.

Something moved ahead of us. I flung myself behind a tree. A huge, four-legged creature shambled through the shadows up ahead. A bear ... or a thing that had been a bear. I had to squint and stare for a long while to see it properly.

It paused to eat the glowing mushrooms. I had time to see the huge tusks sprouting from its jaws, the bald patches on its back and flanks, the raw-looking claws on its forepaws.

Something whistled. The bear looked up, then snarled. Three Fallen attacked it, shooting it repeatedly and stabbing it. It attacked them, pulling down one of the aliens and disemboweling it with its awful tusks.

They finally killed it and dragged the corpse of their companion clear. Then they piled wood around the bear carcass and set it on fire.

When the Fallen departed, dragging their companion, Ghost remarked, "That was ... different."

"Someday," I muttered, edging out of hiding, "I'm going to find a way to clean up this Shard. It's poisoning the innocent."

Ghost gave a hollow laugh. "Are you insane? It's the size of a mountain."

I gave him a sideways look. "You probably shouldn't ask questions you don't want the answer to."

Ghost scanned my face beneath my helmet. "Kelly, I assure you, you're not insane. But I carry your Spark, and that's not good for you."

I rushed through the forest, climbing the hillside toward the Shard. It still seemed dark, even under the open sky. "Ghost, we're about to get the Light back. It doesn't matter."

"It does matter," Ghost insisted. "And I'll return it to you."

He may have said I was sane, but I didn't feel that way. A crazy, hungry exuberance gripped me. The Light was so close! I could feel it beating against my body, warm and tantalizing. Yet darkness clouded my vision, as if the void inside me was stealing the rest of the world from me. Eventually I would stumble about in total darkness, within and without.

Fallen leaped into my path, yelling and firing their plasma beams. Such was my focused, obsessed state that I ran straight at them, cutting them down with bullets as I went. Plasma burned into me and I didn't care. Ghost had to heal me on the fly, because I wasn't stopping.

The gray world had splashes of color in it. Any chink or crack in the Shard appeared to me in burning, vivid color, piercing the veil over my eyes. I wanted it so badly. I was starving for it, struggling against the darkness.

More Fallen intercepted me. I screamed in frustration as I had to stop and fight them. Couldn't they see I didn't care about their stupid salvage? I just wanted Light. I wanted to bathe in it, to dive in and never surface, until all memory of darkness and blindness had been seared from my mind.

I killed half my attackers and the other half ran for cover. Maybe my fury frightened them. I ran on, heedless of my aching lungs, my sore knees and feet, the encroaching shadow that made aiming difficult. A white wall of the Traveler loomed up on my right. I actually touched the cold metal surface, running my fingers along it. This particular wall had no Light in it ... but it had still been part of the Traveler. I laughed out loud and followed its long curve deeper into the ruin.

"Kelly!" Ghost called.

I stopped. He had flown to a nearby wall, where part of the external white shell had been peeled away. Behind it was wire cross-bracing ... and behind that was nothing but shimmering blue light.

I ran toward that lovely, beautiful Light. Ghost was trembling in midair. "I haven't felt so close to the Light since the attack," he said, his voice stronger than it had been in days. "You'd better hang on to your helmet!"

I laughed and held out both arms.

Ghost plunged into the Light and blasted me with it, directing the power like a fire hose. The darkness inside me boiled away in an instant. Ferocious, liquid fire spread through me from head to toe. For an instant, pain drilled into my eyes and neck-then I could see color, color, color. I laughed and cried and spun in circles. I could feel Ghost's delight, too. He was laughing, too, sharing my giddiness.

The Fallen crept up on us, probably trying to see why this crazy Guardian was making so much noise. But I possessed the Light again, and they held no fear for me. I summoned a sword of pure Light and slashed my enemies with bolts of fire.

Finally, Ghost and I stood alone in a haze of smoke. His wrecked segments had been repaired, and no crack marred his eye.

"I returned your Spark," he said. "Just in case."

I caught him out of the air and kissed his four segments. "You wonderful Ghost, you. Thank you for sticking with me through all this. I never would have made it out of the City if not for you. I'll give you my Spark any time."

If a robot was capable of blushing, Ghost would have blushed. As it was, a pinkish tinge colored the blue of his eye lens. "Oh. Goodness. Never do that again."

"Don't worry," I laughed. "I'll never go without Light so long again."

"Never," Ghost agreed fervently.

The end


End file.
